Revelation Advent Calendar - Chapter 2

I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. (Revelation 2:2-5)

When I read those words, the phrase "the love you had at first" stood out to me. If you've read this in other translations, you might have read it phrased "...you have left your first love." Reading it in context, though, you'll see that it's not saying "I Jesus am your First Love, and you have left me!" It is saying that the church at Ephesus is still working hard for God, but has forgotten to do the work in love. We learn in the first three verses of I Corinthians 13 that doing good works without love is not what God wants: "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing."

BUT that doesn't stop people from writing cool songs that use the phrase to mean something a little different. Like, for example, this groovy track from Joe English!

Well the single most thing that's certain
If ever a truth was true
It's that in spite of my many failures
My very first love was You

Lord, the world is filled with lies that make the truth fade from You
But nothing in all creation will ever lessen my love for You

Having Jesus for my first love
Makes the darkest day shine
He has filled me with His Spirit
And I'll love him until the end of time
(And that's a long time!)

There's been a very long list of heartaches
Other loves long ago
But when I finally felt love from You, Lord
I let the loose feelings go

All the pain that hurts the heart and makes the tears freely flow
Will never turn me from You, Lord, or of the love that I've come to know

Having Jesus for my first love
Makes the darkest day shine
He has filled me with His Spirit
And I'll love him until...

If ever there comes a dark time
Where love is nowhere in view
I know that nothing in all creation
Will lessen my love for You

Having Jesus for my first love
Makes the darkest day shine
He has filled me with His Spirit
And I'll love him until...
(And that's a long time!)

Having Jesus for my first love
Makes the darkest day shine
He has filled me with His Spirit
And He's mine for all time!
He is!
Oh yeah!